MINING IN THE PHILIPPINES

The Philippines: A Developing Country in Southeast Asia

An introduction to the archipelago

The Republic of the Philippines is an archipelago of approximately 7,100 islands in Southeast Asia (Figure 1.1) located on the western side of the Pacific Ocean between latitude 20 degrees north and latitude 6 degrees south. The archipelago lies east of Vietnam, south of Taiwan and northeast of Borneo and consists of four distinct regions: the northern island of Luzon, the southern island of Mindanao, the long finger-like western island of Palawan and the central Visayan Islands. It has a land area of 300,000 square kilometers with approximately 65 percent of this being taken up by Luzon and Mindanao while only 500 of the 7,100 islands exceed one square kilometer in area (IBON 2002c). Located on the "Pacific Ring of Fire" – a belt of volcanoes running along the Pacific coasts of the Americas and Asia – the islands of the Philippines are mountainous and are frequently described as a series of "half drowned mountains" (IBON 2002c, 8). The majority of the land area of the archipelago consists of land over 350 meters above sea level with flat land remaining concentrated in river valleys or in small discontinuous strips of coastal plains backed by steep mountains (Newson 1999). Indeed, the topography of the Philippines could be described as an outcrop of mountains emerging from the sea with a small fertile coastal strip and a series of narrow interior valleys (Bankoff 2003a).

In 2011, the Philippine population stood at approximately 100 million people (United States Census Bureau 2011). As of 2007, approximately 50 percent of the population was living on the island of Luzon, 25 percent of the population was living on the island of Mindanao, and 19 percent was living throughout the Visayan Islands (National Statistical Coordination Board 2011). Like many countries in Southeast Asia, the Philippines has a large and rapidly growing capital city to which migrants from countryside move, and Manila houses almost 11 percent of the national population (National Statistical Coordination Board 2011). With a 2010 population growth rate of 1.9 percent per year, the population of the archipelago can be expected to double by the year 2047 (United States Census Bureau 2011).

A developing country

A member of the so-called "developing world," the Philippines is classified as a "lower-middle-income country" by the World Bank (World Bank 2009). In 2009, its gross national income (GNI) per capita was USD 1,620, a number below average relative to other East Asian countries (USD 2,182) and other lower-middle-income countries (USD 1,905) (World Bank 2009). The Philippines, like many other developing countries, faces challenges such as low life expectancy, low levels of education and low levels of personal income. In this regard, the Human Development Index (HDI), a composite index taking into account life expectancy, education, and income can be a useful descriptive statistic. The HDI can range from a high of one down to a low of zero and, in 2010, the highest HDI score was Norway, at 0.938, while the lowest HDI score was Zimbabwe, at 0.14 (United Nations Development Programme 2011). The Philippines, with an HDI score of 0.638, ranked at 97 in the world, well behind number one ranked Norway and below the East Asia and Pacific average of 0.650 (United Nations Development Programme 2011). It must be stressed that this national HDI score of 0.638 does not reflect homogenous development throughout the archipelago and – as Figure 1.2 shows with its depiction of provincial HDI scores during 2006 – there are substantial variations in development from province to province, with Benguet having the highest HDI score of 0.787 and Sulu claiming the lowest HDI score of 0.326 (Human Development Network 2009).

A society dominated by an oligarchy

Inequality in the distribution of income is a prominent aspect of society in the archipelago. In the words of Tyner,

The Philippines is a country of haves and have-nots. It is a country of the super-rich and the abject poor. It is a land where the richest 10 per cent of the population hold over 40 percent of the total income, while the poorest account for less than two percent. Overall, nearly half of the population lives on less than US $2 a day. (2009, 2)

To quantify the distribution of income, economists use a measure of income inequality known as the Gini coefficient, which can range from a score of zero indicating perfect income equality, to a score of 100 indicating perfect income inequality. From 2002 to 2008, the Philippines had an average Gini coefficient of 44; a number giving it a higher degree of inequality than such neighbors as China (42), Indonesia (39), Malaysia (38), Thailand (42), and Vietnam (39) had over this same time period (World Bank 2010). The disparity in the distribution of income is a manifestation of the domination of the Philippines by a powerful oligarchy. There are many writers who regard the tremendous power of this oligarchy as being an obstacle to any amelioration of the conditions of the poor (Hawes 1987; Putzel 1992). In the words of Bello et al. (2009, 79), "The national policies of the government have always favored economic and political elites, thereby entrenching poverty and social and economic inequality." Attention now turns to an examination of the historical origins of this oligarchy.

Class structure in pre-Hispanic society

Prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century the population of the islands lived in small coastal villages consisting of 100 to 500 inhabitants; these villages were called barangays after the Malay term balangay (which were boats used by the original Malay settlers of the archipelago) and their inhabitants relied upon fishing for sustenance (Constantino 1975). At the time of the arrival of the Spanish, the barangays were already experiencing a process of rudimentary social stratification and were ruled over by a datu – or chieftain – and a group of maharlika – or nobles – with the vast majority of people consisting of a group of people known as alpin who were often held in a form of debt-bondage (Tyner 2009). However, it must be emphasized that the barriers between these classes were not rigid ones and there was no concept of individual freehold property in land (Putzel 1992).

The Spanish colonial period, 1568–1896

It was with the coming of the Spanish that the entrenchment of a powerful oligarchy began to emerge as a dominant feature of Philippine society; "The Spanish colonial regime left a legacy of plutocracy where a few hundred families control the country's resource system" (Roque and Garcia 1993, 104). One of the first things the Spanish did upon taking control of the archipelago was institute a land administration system known as the encomienda, where blocks of land were entrusted to the control of representatives of the crown; then, over time, these encomiendas began to be replaced by haciendas where hacendados were given ownership of the land complete with the right of inheritance and free disposition (Constantino 1975). Originally, most of the haciendas went to conquistadores but before long many religious orders within the Roman Catholic Church, such as the Augustinians, Dominicans, Jesuits and Recollects began to take control of the best agricultural lands, and by the end of the Spanish colonial period these friar lands totaled approximately 170,000 hectares (Roque and Garcia 1993). Enriched by its ownership of agricultural lands, the church became a powerful institution (La Frailocracia) in Spanish colonial society "which arrogated unto itself the political prerogatives and authority of the state" (Tan 2002, 17). Indeed, the church was so dominant during Spanish colonial times that Tan has referred to this period as "four centuries of brainwashing by catechetical methods" that "regimented the compliant population into devotion to various icons of Spanish religiosity" (2002, 17). "The priest used his role as father confessor to force his parishioners into debt and further dependence upon him" and only rarely "did clerics take a real stand to protect their parishioners rights" (Nadeau 2008, 29).

During the Spanish colonial period society began to segregate into three distinct groups (Putzel 1992). At the apex of the colonial social order were the peninsulares, Spaniards born in the Iberian Peninsula, who, along with the religious orders, occupied key positions in the state. Below these people were the insulares, Spaniards born in the islands, and the datus who commanded authority in the barangays by collecting tribute and organizing forced labor for the crown; collectively these people became known as the principalia, or "prominent ones." At the base of society were the tao, the vast bulk of the population of Malaysian ancestry referred to by the Spanish as either indios or naturales.

One group that began to assume an increasing degree of importance after the first 200 years of Spanish colonial rule was the Chinese (Hawes 1987; Putzel 1992). Originally, Spain attempted to keep the archipelago closed to most of the outside world and no Spaniards living in the islands were allowed to visit Asian ports. Although Chinese traders from Fukien and Kwantung were looked down upon by the Spanish and derogatorily referred to as "sangleys" or "merchants," they were attracted to Manila where they would trade silks and pottery for gold and silver transported by the Manila galleon from Mexico and, by the early eighteenth century, Chinese merchants began intermarrying with members of the principalia and in so doing created a mestizo land owning class. As the Spanish began to make Philippine agricultural crops such as indigo, sugar and abaca available for export, there was a rapid growth in agricultural exports from the archipelago. This growth in exports surged after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which dramatically reduced travel time between the Philippines and Spain. With more exports there was more wealth for those owning land and the land owning class began to consolidate its power in society.

As the mestizo land-owning class became richer it also began to acquire more land through the use of the pacto de retroventa (Constantino 1975; Putzel 1992). Mestizo landowners would lend money to peasant small holders and these loans would be secured by the lender taking control of the borrower's land. If the borrower repaid the loan the land would revert back to the borrower but if the borrower defaulted on the loan, as was more often the case, the land became the property of the lender. Through the skillful use of the pacto de retroventa by mestizo landowners, thousands of small landowners became disposed of their lands and the rich and powerful acquired more land and were able to receive even more revenue from the production and sale of agricultural exports. At this time some of the powerful families (the Aquinos, Ayalas, Cojuangcos, Laurels, Lopezes, Sorianos, and Zamoras) that still dominate the archipelago today became well established. As Putzel (1992, 49) wrote, "Three hundred years of Spanish colonial rule had given rise to a landed oligarchy whose fortunes were largely tied to export agriculture."

The revolution of 1896

The Spanish colonial era was by no means a period of tranquility and it was marked by numerous peasant uprisings. On the island of Bohol, for example, the Spanish lost complete control from 1744 until 1829 when peasants established mountainous communities and defied the Spanish (Constantino 1975). As the twentieth century approached, however, the conditions faced by the peasantry increasingly began to worsen; as Linn (2000, 16) wrote, "By the 1890s much of the Philippines was in severe distress, plagued by social tension, disease, hunger, banditry and rebellion." The waning years of the nineteenth century also saw developing unrest among members of the upper classes as they began to agitate for change due to grievances generated by the Spanish domination of colonial society (Hawes 1987). Members of the principalia felt discriminated against when their sons were passed over by the Spanish church hierarchy for placement in the priesthood and when administrative positions in the colonial government were reserved for insulares; this only worsened as Spain lost its Latin American colonies and Spanish administrators from those former colonies migrated to the Philippines creating an even more oppressive and overstaffed bureaucracy (Hawes 1987). By the 1890s educated members of the upper classes, referred to as the ilustrados ("enlightened ones"), began agitating for liberal reforms in the colonial administration and even for representation in the Spanish courts (Hawes 1987).

When revolution against Spain finally broke out in 1896, it was a revolution of both the upper and lower classes. As Putzel (1992, 50) wrote, "The Revolution of 1896 represented a juncture between the animosity of the emerging Filipino ilustrado elite against the friar orders and Spanish dominance, and the aspirations of the peasantry for kalayaan, or freedom." The revolution was initially spearheaded by an organization of landless tenant farmers known as the Katipunan under the leadership of Andres Bonifacio, a man from a lower-middle-class background (Constantino 1975). "The Katipunan began in the Tagalog region and was composed of the dispossessed lower urban class who could never hope to gain a higher education" (Nadeau 2008, 41). Before long, though, a wealthy landowner named Emilio Aguinaldo took control of the Katipunan and had Bonifacio killed (Constantino 1975). Under Aguinaldo's leadership, the revolution against Spain became a revolution against Spanish control of the archipelago and lost any pretense of being a revolution capable of remaking Philippine society (Silbey 2007). The revolution was initially led by urban artisans and workers, along with small landholders and tenants from the friar lands around Manila, but eventually its leadership passed into the hands of the upper classes (Hawes 1987). According to Danenberg et al. (2007, 294), the Philippine revolution was a national liberation struggle that ended up as a victory only for the national bourgeoisie; what had started as a "struggle for national liberation turned out as liberation for the newly formed bourgeoisie." "The 1896 Revolution led to the overthrow of Spanish rule and the curtailment of friar authority, but the land tenure system was left very much intact" (Putzel 1992, 51). "The elite," wrote Hawes, "was not interested in self- liquidation, and so its members did not seek radical transformations in Philippine society. They were politically progressive but economically conservative" (1987, 23). "For the vast majority of people, the transition from Spanish revolutionary government in 1896 meant little more than a continuation of rule by the local elite" (Linn 2000, 196).

The American colonial period, 1898–1946

On 25 April 1898, in a conflict of very vague origins, the United States and Spain went to war (Silbey 2007). On 1 May 1898 the United States Navy under the command of Commodore George Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay, and that June the United States Army sent 2,500 troops to the islands under the command of General Wesley Merritt to assist Dewey in securing the archipelago (Linn 1989, 2000; Silbey 2007). By 10 December 1898, when the Treaty of Paris was signed giving the Philippines to the United States in exchange for USD 20 million, the United States had made the decision to retain the islands (Hawes 1987). The Filipinos, who had declared independence from Spain on 12 June 1898, were unwilling to accept one new colonial master as a replacement for another and, in February 1899, the Philippine–American War broke out and lasted for almost three years (Linn 1989, 2000; Silbey 2007). The conflict between the nascent Philippine Republic and the Americans was by and large led by the same members of the principalia who led the revolution against Spain and the Americans were ultimately able to prevail in this conflict by convincing the elite that their interests were better served by allowing the Americans to assume control of the archipelago than by resisting them (Tan 2002). "The local elite who led the resistance eventually found the cost of guerrilla war too high to bear: theirs were the lands sequestered; theirs were the tax assessments from both sides and theirs were the families and fortunes at risk" (Linn 2000, 197). In the words of Putzel (1992, 51), "The local landed oligarchy that dominated the short-lived Philippine Republic soon came to an understanding with the new colonial authorities."